


the lack of romance in my soul

by la_victorienne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-03
Updated: 2010-11-03
Packaged: 2018-10-15 10:43:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10554998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: In which Ariadne's mouth gets ahead of her, Cobb is surprising, and Eames and Arthur steal something from the British Museum.





	

She's trying on the dress when Arthur calls.

"Arthur!" she fairly squeaks, and her mother's eyes narrow. "Not…not really the best of times, but what can I do for you?"

"Just calling to check in—Ariadne, are you all right? You sound strange."

Of course I do, you moron, she wants to say, but her mother is still watching. "Do I? I'm shopping with my mother, I can't imagine why."

"You're in the States."

It's not a question; she knows he knows she knows he keeps tabs on her. "Mm," she settles for. "You're not."

"London," he says. "Eames has been showing off."

"Showing you off, more like," she grumbles good-naturedly. Her mother stares, already forming the twenty questions that will come later. "Look Arthur, like I said, great to hear from you, but not the most convenient time."

"Right, of course, you're busy. Well, since you're in the States, you could at least give Cobb a call. He'd like to hear from you, I'm sure."

Ariadne hums noncommittally, wondering if Arthur can hear the way the bottom of her stomach drops out at Cobb's name. A year and a half, and thinking of him still manages to fluster her completely. "Talk to you soon, Arthur," she says, regulating her breathing.

"Goodbye, Ariadne. Oh—and Eames says good luck, on the pageant."

"It's not a pageant!" Ariadne screeches, but it's no good. Arthur is already gone. Bastard.

Ariadne turns to look at her mother, the white dress moving with her. Her mother has the Look on her face. Great.

"Is Arthur your escort?" her mother asks. Well, at least she's not thinking about Dominick Cobb.

 

 

 

It's not a pageant, whatever Eames believes.

A pageant might not be so bad, Ariadne muses, staring at the lace-and-chiffon monstrosity hanging on her closet door. At least with pageants there isn't all this talk of escorts and dancing, just world peace. Ariadne's family, however, have been debuting since the Revolutionary War, and Priscilla Warren will be damned if she doesn't see her only daughter do so in style. After all, Ariadne is twenty-five—and everyone knows that after twenty-five if you're not married you'll always be alone.

At least, that's how Priscilla explained it when Ariadne came home from Paris. And what Priscilla wants, Priscilla gets.

Ariadne sighs, pulling her sketchpad from under her bed. When in doubt, design, she supposes, flipping through the pages of impossible skyscrapers and glass cathedrals to a blank page. It's not as effortless as designing in the dream, but the smell of paper and the slick of graphite are more comforting than staring at the dress and willing the escort problem solved. She draws a ballroom, palatial gates, a winding stair to a balcony standing alone. None of it makes any sense, and that's just the way she prefers it.

She's still absorbed when her phone rings, pencil smudged on her fingers and her nose. She flips it up and open without looking—it could only be Arthur or Eames.

"H'lo," she mumbles, pencil in her mouth.

It's not Arthur, and it's not Eames.

"Pageants, Ariadne?"

She feels a strange fire in the pit of her belly—rage, she thinks, blind, unabashed despise of everything Jackson Eames chooses to be. "It's not a pageant, Dom," she grits out, too furious to feel at all nervous at the sound of his voice. "It's a Debut Ball, capital letters included, and I'll thank you to remember it."

Dom laughs, over the phone, and the sound of it catches her by surprise. "A Debut Ball, then. I just didn't peg you for the frills and dresses type, is all."

"I'm not," she replies, biting back the thought of not like Mal that crosses her mind. "It's Mother Tyrannical's idea."

Dom hums in response. "Well, if you have time after it's over, you should come to visit. The children would love to meet you, and it would be nice to see you, too."

And that's the thing about Dom, the thing that needles all the right and wrong spots within her—he sounds like he means it. Everything he says sounds impossibly genuine, and she wants desperately to believe it as truth, wants to give the thrill and delight free rein.

She's already decided to decline when she catches the words coming out of her mouth. "Actually, Dom, could you maybe come here? I haven't found an escort yet, and Arthur and Eames are across the ocean. I can ask my brother, if you can't leave the children—I don't want to impose, but I'd dearly love to give mother the shock of her life, and I think you might qualify in spades."

Her ears are almost ringing too much to hear him say "Yes."

"Really?"

"I'll call in the au pair, she could use the hours. When do you need me?"

"There's a rehearsal Thursday," she stammers, smearing graphite over her cheek.

"I'll be there Wednesday night," Dom promises, and there's the click of him hanging up and Ariadne left staring at the phone, wondering what the hell she's just done.

"Mother?" she finally calls out. "I have an escort, he'll be here Wednesday."

Priscilla trills in delight, a terrifying sound. Ariadne goes back to her sketchpad.

 

 

 

 _This was your idea, wasn't it?_ she texts Arthur.

 _I laid the trap, yes, but it's your own fault for walking into it_ , he replies. _Must run, Eames has stolen something. I think it's from the British Museum._

 _I hate you both_ , she sends.

Arthur doesn't respond.

 

 

 

Priscilla meets him at the door, talons in his arm before Ariadne can intercept. "But you must stay with us," she's saying. "We have the most lovely guest room—much more homey than that hotel. I can't believe Ariadne didn't offer."

Ariadne bites her tongue, hovering in the doorway waiting for her mother to disappear. "I didn't really give her a chance, Ms. Warren," Dom says, and there's a warmth in his voice she's never heard before. "I saw an opportunity to help and I was off like a shot."

"Oh, call me Priscilla," her mother sighs, and Ariadne wants the earth to swallow her whole.

Dom turns to see her. "Hello," he says.

She wonders, idly, as she breathes a hi in return, how such a change in mood is possible. She's nearly forgotten her mother in the room, nearly forgotten the wider world at all. Looking at him face to face she can see the things she glanced over ten minutes ago—the ruddy shine to his cheeks, the hint of a tan, the breadth of his smile. They've spoken a few times, seen each other once in the past year and a half, but she's never seen him like this—and never had so clear a concept of how _sick_ he had been while still in the business.

Her mother breaks the moment with a pointed cough. "I'll just turn down the sheets, shall I? Mr. Cobb, follow me."

"Call me Dom," he says, without breaking eye contact with Ariadne. "I'll be right behind you."

Priscilla's lips thin, but she disappears down the hall, and they are alone.

"Hi," Ariadne says, again.

"Hello," he replies.

"Thank you for coming," she starts.

"You look good," he interrupts. "Even with pencil on your face." He reaches out with a thumb; her hand flies up to intercept.

"So do you," she mumbles. She's never been like this before, never been so childlike with him. She drops her hand and stands up straight, determined to return to the ease of the working relationship they had before. "You should follow Mother. She'll think the worst, if you don't."

"Of course," he says, amiably, and she tamps down on a surge of affection for how well he really seems. They wander out, into the hall, and that is that.

 

 

 

That is _never_ that. She wonders if a terrible rehearsal meaning a great performance applies in this particular instance, because if things continue the Debut Ball is going to have to be utterly spectacular to make up for all the screwups of the evening.

It's her mother, Ariadne knows, always her mother. Asking pointed questions, ignoring the cut-it-out clues, latching onto Dom again and again. Thank god for twenty-one and over debuts, Ariadne thinks, starting in on another glass of the house white if only to hide the deepening scowl on her face. Never has country club chardonnay tasted so good.

"Hello," Dom says behind her, making her jump.

"Wh—hi," she replies, fumbling the words.

"You look lovely," he murmurs, bending towards her ear.

She can feel her cheeks growing hot—more him than the wine, she's sure. He's only been around a day and a half and she's already regretting asking him to come, setting herself up for disappointment. "Thank you," she manages, however reluctant it sounds.

"It's true," he presses. She takes another sip of the wine, and Dom frowns. "Even if you are scowling the way Arthur does when Eames mocks him."

Her cheeks flush again at being caught out in her rotten mood. "I'm not trying to, really. It's just—she's just—I swear, once this is all over I'm moving back to Paris indefinitely and changing my name so no-one can find me. My family—they just don't know me anymore."

Dom steps even nearer, his proximity making her heart jump. "Is it really so different?" He looks pained, like it's his fault, and that look, at least, is all too familiar to her. She lays a hand on his arm.

"They were always in a different world, Dom. I did leave for graduate school, you remember."

He hums, unconvincingly. "I didn't realize," he says finally. "They seem like a normally dysfunctional family, to me."

"That's precisely the problem, Dom," she replies. "At least even at our most conflicted, you and the team always treated me like an adult. It's as if my mother doesn't realize I've grown up, for all I'm debuting tomorrow."

"I rather think I can understand that," Dom says. "I do have children. I can't imagine Philippa as any older than she is, and I really don't want to."

"Perhaps," Ariadne concedes. "But you were also away from her, from them, for almost a year—and had to cede her upbringing to someone else for a while. I've been in the clutches of Priscilla, queen of the South my entire life, and she's never let me forget it."

On cue, Priscilla catches sight of her daughter and beckons. Ariadne passes Dom her glass of wine and follows obediently drawn into conversation with a friend of a friend of her father's. When she looks back, Dom is gone.

 

 

 

She knocks on his door that night, after everyone has gone to bed. He's sitting in the armchair by the window, and he's wearing reading glasses, and the sight of him surprises her even as she's trained herself to expect it. "Am I interrupting?"

"No, of course not." He dog-ears a page in the book he's reading and puts the glasses on the table. "What is it?"

"I don't want you to think I regret it," she blurts, shifting on the balls of her feet. "The dreaming, I mean. I don't. I want to do it forever, really, or as long as I'm still good at it. I have ideas for it—ideas for myself, and the future, and I never would have come up with them if not for you, and a little Brechtian alienation from my mother isn't enough to make me wish it had never happened. Just, er, so you know," she finishes lamely. "I could never regret meeting you," she continues, dropping her gaze to the floor.

When she looks up again, Dom is standing close to her. "The team? Or just me?" he asks, and no-one could ever accuse Dom of being oblivious, however single-minded his attention during the Fischer job.

She flicks her eyes away. She can't look at him, can't let him read the naked truth in her eyes. It's selfish, this wanting—she's taken him from his children for this, from the life he's trying to rebuild, and here she is trying to keep him for longer. She wants to pull away, leave the moment unfinished— _tries_ to pull away, but he grips her elbow and won't let go.

"Answer me, Ariadne. I need to know."

It's the desperation in his eyes that does it, the realization that she's not the only one afraid of the answer. His fingers are tight on her elbow and she can feel the heat from his body and he's towering over her, looming over her, and she shuts her eyes and grits her jaw and says "It's not like I asked any of them to meet my _mother_."

He lets go of her, takes a step back. She watches the shuttering of his eyes, the setting of his jaw, the way he's running through his options. "Now who looks like Arthur?" she asks softly, and turns to leave. "Don't feel obligated to stay, if you're uncomfortable," she continues, her hand on the doorframe. "I'll have my brother escort. He took the same ballroom lessons I did."

"Ariadne."

She doesn't look back, doesn't need to see him to know the way he's standing. "It was nice to see you, Dom."  


 

 

It's easy to stay upstairs all day before the event; Ariadne sets herself to the task of practicing all those feminine tricks of the trade she's spent twenty-five years avoiding. She paints her fingernails six times, her toenails twice, painting and scrubbing off and repainting until every nail is perfect rather than emerge for a manicure. She soaks in the bath until she's pruny, curls her hair lock by lock, lets Priscilla fuss over eyeliner and lip plumper and blush. Her mother natters about any and everything except Dom, which is exactly what she needs, and she tries not to dwell too long on how well her mother knows her, sometimes. They all heard Dom's rental leaving in the middle of the night, all heard Ariadne's slamming door—her brother's already taken his tuxedo out of the closet to air. She throws herself into being the girl her mother always wanted, and she thinks of Eames.

Pretending, she finds, is easy. Eames would be proud.

And then it's time, and she's standing at the top of the ballroom stairs waiting for her name to be called, and she thinks she hears the sound of the ocean outside the open window before the head of the Junior League says "Miss Ariadne Warren and Mr. Dominick Cobb" and the bottom drops out of her stomach because he's still _here_.

He's smiling as she walks down the stairs, a kind of smile she's never seen before. He's smiling and holding out his hand and she's taking it and saying "You came" because he _did_ and how is she supposed to take all of this except with a smile like her mother taught her?

"A promise is a promise," he says, and then they're dancing in front of everyone and she closes her eyes to believe in it all.

It feels like a kick.

When she opens her eyes this time, Dom is looking down at her, right where she should be. And if they skip dessert, well. It's not like _everyone_ will notice.


End file.
